STUPID IS AS STUPID DOES....RAMBLINGS EDITION

You know it's a slow news day when one of the national headlines in our big city paper is:  "Alaska town learns it isn't getting Taco Bell."  Apparently the 6,000 folks in the isolated burg of Bethel were crushed by an "evil hoax" circulating about town that the Bell was to open this summer. Personally, I'd say they are lucky to have dodged a bullet...and indigestion. That this uproar is considered news in Kansas, or even in Alaska, is beyond me.

Also in the news this morning....a 47-year-old woman is in critical condition with burns over half of her body, due to a house fire.  Cause of fire:  smoking while using her oxygen tank.  I wonder how many times she'd been told, "Put out that damned cigarette!  You're going to kill yourself!"  

When I was a social worker, I had a client, female, just like this gal in the news.  After years of smoking, she'd damaged her lungs and heart so much that she, too, was hooked up to an oxygen tank.  And she, too, continued smoking in spite of the big red warning sticker attached to the tank.  Every time I went to see her, I'd yell through the front door, "I'm not coming in until you either put out your cigarette or turn off your oxygen!  You decide." And most of the time, she opted to turn off the tank. Hopeless. I don't know why doctors even bother.

Lord knows I'm not one to gripe about the idea of kids reading more, BUT when the esteemed Governor of the State of Kansas, Sam What's-His-Name, jumps on the "Read Kansas Read" bandwagon, I'm somewhat suspicious.  He's not exactly been a friend of educators during his time in office, when it comes to funding public school. And then he finishes his "I challenge Kansans to read more books this summer" speech with his personal boast:  "I'm planning to read four." Well, big whoopity-do. Who does he think he's impressing?  Four books in three months?  What a slacker. I can read four books in a week. --With one hand tied behind my back.  With one eye closed.  While riding my exercise bike. Without a Taco Bell Burrito Supreme in my belly or a Marlboro dangling from my mouth.  So there.

I've got to quit reading the newspaper.